Long Reliquary Poems
Long Reliquary Poems. Below are the most popular long Reliquary by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Reliquary poems by poem length and keyword.
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Cardboard cathedral, fortress of dust,
you held galaxies in your corrugated ribs—
a kingdom where spoons became swords,
where thimbles gleamed like crown jewels.
O relic of scuffed soles and weary feet,
you were ark and archive,
sheltering braids snipped in summer,
ticket stubs from matinees,
a child’s palm-smudged drawings
of dogs with too many legs.
They called you empty.
But we knew better.
You were the alchemist’s vial,
turning nothing into everything:
a teacup carved by stubborn hands,
a dollhouse with wallpaper scars,
a toy soldier’s trench lined with yesterday’s news.
Father’s voice, rough as burlap,
said, We had bottle caps and stones,
yet here you stood
a holy reliquary of enough.
Beneath beds, you gathered ghosts:
dog tags, a boy’s last letter,
a photograph of Mother at sixteen,
her smile a secret pressed between layers.
When the new world became
all chrome and neon and more~
you remained, stubborn as a scar,
whispering:
The riches are here, inside my ribs.
Now, as I lift your lid,
the past exhales~
a scent of glue and dime-store perfume,
of hands that built castles from lack.
O humble box,
you were never just cardboard.
You were the map,
the compass,
the keeper,
the proof
that life sometimes fits
in a 13x8 shoebox.
*this poem is part of the introduction to my soon-to-be-published book of memoirs titled "Shoebox Chronicles."
I had to learn to skin animals
but instead
practiced on myself
after diving deep
into the abyss of my soul,
I surfaced
with my tri-colored eyes alight
in the illumination
of self prophecy
fates morn’ dawned bright
flint-ed off the horizon
the sun blazed,
misery
and reflect in the seven seas
streaming from tempests eye
I stretched out my dermis
till a feather was thicker,
it was then
the calligraphy started
a hundred thousand words
later, I became concerned,
my relic would perish
with nothing to protect
my legacy,
times harsh hands
crush the petals of my soul
I pushed past the thirteenth rib.
and pull out my heart,
the seven seas having decimated
to clear each chamber
my words rest in a reliquary
lined with love
and I pass it to you
for safe keeping
namaste
And here you are
on the end of a smile
that doesn't seem to fit
your face, caught
in the startle of a flash,
still and ageless
after all these years.
I wonder what thoughts
were in your mind
when the shutter clicked
to hold you there,
a wafer of who you were
back then, set free of time
to surface here, unchanged.
I will never know.
Each image now
a closed book revealing
nothing but its cover or,
at best, by luck,
a small, unexpected
glimpse of something more
caught in an expression
or in a look of the far way
reflected in your eyes.
Love always reaches back
to redeem what it can
to restock the treasures
stolen from its stores
by time.
And years hence,
will there be someone
looking at a photograph of us,
deciphering the pose,
seeking out a message
written in our eyes.
Will they see something
hidden in an old photograph
left there by chance, a sliver
of who we were, a little bit
of bone to replenish what
remains of us in their
reliquary of love.
In my heart, a reliquary, gather teeth that do not belong to me,
but are those of voices I swallowed out of politeness, unwillingly,
they echo in silence like relics of a gentler, forgotten violence,
and I polish them with guilt until they shine like silent confessions.
I tell myself there is beauty in this digestion of thoughts and emotions,
that consuming means transforming, changing essence into silence,
but every night, I wake with a mouth full of unbelieved prayers,
as if my soul seeks to speak unshared truths.
And yet, within this dance of shadows and unlived memories,
I struggle with the ghosts of those words that never belonged to me,
I am an alchemist of my own conscience, seeking to find gold,
in the ashes of promises I never understood, only swallowed.
I place these relics under the pale light of introspection, seeking healing,
but each rattle is a reminder of transformation through forced silence,
and I wonder if I will ever be able to release these captive words,
or if my heart will remain a reliquary of eternal melancholy.
In the labyrinth of my thoughts, an endless waltz of shadows,
I step on the edges of my soul, where angels shed feathers of memories,
their wings, birds of light, beating a rhythm locked in the vault of my chest,
struggling to fly, yet never freeing themselves from the cage of bones.
Thoughts writhe, eyeless serpents, cold as forgotten dreams,
coiling at the root of my mind, whispering riddles in dead tongues,
which only my nightmares can decipher, a dialect of the deep night,
words that slip like sand through the hourglass of time, lost in silence.
Every word I might speak is a thorny crucifix on my tongue,
neither holy nor sharp enough to cry out through the dense silence surrounding me,
just present, a relic of silence, inert and impossible to transform into sound,
a burden weighing down the soul, a mute song on the strings of an old harp.
I dream of speaking in rivers of fire, in torrents that could melt the silence,
to burst into a dance of flames, to burn away the fog enveloping my thoughts,
but instead, I drown in the depths of a cup of still, transparent water,
a mirror reflecting infinity, deeper than I have ever been.
I am not mute. I am a vessel filled to the brim, an ocean of glass and sparks,
and everything inside is a symphony of shards and gunpowder,
an explosion waiting to be unleashed, to release the burden of silence,
yet I remain a sealed reliquary, a universe keeping its secrets locked away.
A Reliquary Musing
A child’s doll melded into a stone in a former Nazi Death Camp
as its chilling image haunts the collective mind of those who live
in the so-called civilized world of today and who profess a hollow
concern for a child who’s long dead and who’s been completely
forgotten to the rest of the modern world.
A sad image like this one should haunt the very soul of mankind that
oft professes a political correctness as it sweeps such unpleasant images
under a bone-ridden rug that reflects a sad happenstance and mutters only
a sigh at the horrific nature of such a truly evil occurrence.
And, only Almighty God knows this sad truth.
And, now you do too.
Amen.
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
June 14, 2022 (Narrative)
“You can’t make homes out of human beings.”
— Warsan Shire
Wishbone
He appraises me as though my bones
were fashioned for breaking,
two limbs diverging from a sacred centre,
his hunger already choosing
which half it intends to keep.
There is an unfeeling felony in such looking,
the way desire can undress a person
until even personhood becomes superfluous.
He makes an altar of my anatomy,
then calls appetite reverence.
He would tie me to his tongue
and still not know the aptitude of my name.
He mistook possession for intimacy,
lust for fractured divinity,
my body for some reliquary
he might prise apart for providence.
His eyes of penitence arrived too late.
Beneath fractured halos,
what hollow absolution resurrects
a woman reduced to portions:
mouth, waist, thighs,
the convenient mathematics of flesh?
He had already tested where I was weakest,
where the bone would give,
how much wanting could be mistaken
for tenderness before it became cruelty.
That was the anatomy of absence:
to be entirely present
inside a body someone else
had already erased me from.
I was no omen for his wanting,
no little bone upon which
he might wager a wish.
Yet he still broke me.
But he did not know what wishbones remember:
that they once belonged to wings,
that fracture is a hinge, not an ending,
that some things split
without surrendering themselves.
He expected two obedient halves,
a clean division,
something small enough to possess.
Instead, the fracture disclosed
what his hunger had failed to comprehend:
I had never belonged to the bone.
And if time turns,
will scars stain the sky?
Let them.
The larger fragment in his fist
never meant he won.
It was only proof
that possession leaves evidence.
He had to break a thing that flew
to believe it was his.
Ronald Rump reasonably roasted
Remarkable – recourse retaining rickety
rambling reverence regarding “r.”
Ronald Rump
repugnant racist republican reviled -
rickettsia re:itch ruler.
Rapaciously ravaged
revered reverential rubric.
Radical ruthless renegade
rapidly riotously ripped rigged ramparts.
Refrained retaining remnant
redolent regal, resplendent rafters.
Riches rudely ruptured rooted rectified rights.
Ruckus ricocheted revenant reign.
Ratified rattlebrained rules roil reductionism.
Rambunctious rapscallions rollicked;
rendered ruinous ramifications.
Rusty razor razing revenge rented reprisal.
Rabid rectal rictus rotten
rebranded re-calibrated redoubt.
Rambunctious revolutionaries rejoiced.
Ruffians rode roughshod
routing reigning royalty.
Reiterated revetting robust recidivist rationality.
Rode Rolls Royce relentlessly
rendering rock ribbing.
Riffraff raconteur raised reactionary response.
Revisited rancorous restrictive
redlined realigned rightward rivets.
Robocop ridiculously
rubber-stamped reorganization.
Recalcitrant reactors released rapture.
Rash Russian roulette
reconnaissance raconteurs racked rubles.
Red room reflected Republican RNA.
Rap risible rheumy ratiocinated rug-rats
revoked righteous refulgent repertory.
Rapier robed robbers ransacked
reliquary resounding retaliation.
Retaliatory redcoat regnum
reformation remembered.
Rudy robotically recoiled rapprochement
raison d'être rosily revered
rifled relics raffled.
Rookie raves ripe rackful
rubenesque reliably ranked.
Refulgent rotundity requisite
requirement re: reappointment.
Road-tested, roadworthy
redeem reapportion routed role.
Reprehensible reassignment
rapidly recognizes response.
Rife rampage removed respectability – respect.
Responsible roused restitution refuted.
Risky resultant reconnoitering
runaway railroad reverberated rivalry.
Reflexive ramrod reaction reconfirmed
redoubling ridding revitalization.
Reconfiguration realpolitik reinstated repudiation
rebooting Roosevelt regime reconsidered.
Requisition required resilient reseeding republic.
Regrettable riley roars remorseless ribbing.
Rare recount restoring recondite
renown reprobate Rapunzel.
Republican representatives
rejoice reclaiming reins.
I see nothing but pink plume and ink
In the lofty canopy above
The roof is raised with mist
And rust in my eyes
and the old wreck of souls
Shouting Jazz melodies like tricks
The way this porch was raised
by Summer Sweat-Backs
Anticipating the eager tide
Of the long lost labour
of Coast Mainline Harbour poles
Broken Nets untied and umkempt
My Masterpiece belongs
at Sea
A Ship sent to Eternity
"The Constant Work of Man"
Sorrowed to Travail
Being fished by the Whale
With Jonah's reticence
I bemoan Nineveh's wailing tides
And grow with the Sand
Dali came to me once
in the repose of Dream
With unexpected charm
Amidst reliquary code:
Growing up and away the hoop
The tree anchored to my soul
Had Been Lifted
—Where the Fragrance Went—
You crossed my life
so lightly
the windows
kept their breath.
Only afterwards
the ink
refused its ordinary black.
Rain lingered
beneath the eaves
until each drop
seemed intent
on carrying
something invisible
from sky
to stone.
I followed
that alteration
the way forgotten astronomers
followed a wandering star—
not to arrive,
but to discover
why departure
sometimes glows
longer
than presence.
Beside a roofless cloister
where ivy
had memorised
the missing walls,
rain entered
exactly where
the choir
once gathered.
Moss
finished
the mason's unfinished hand.
Within a fractured reliquary
orris,
myrrh,
labdanum—
had already abandoned
their vessels,
yet the air
continued wearing them.
Then everything
began exchanging
its keeping.
The river
carried mountain-light
without disturbing
the mountain.
Fire,
finding cedar,
returned
as incense.
Moonlight
entered a shard
of blue glass
and departed
the colour
of remembered water.
Far below roots,
Persephone
lifted
one hellebore—
and somewhere
beyond sight,
an orchard
answered.
I stopped searching
for what had gone.
Instead,
I watched
how every faithful thing
arrived elsewhere.
Long after
your footsteps
had forgotten
their own direction,
the leather
continued travelling,
quietly wearing
what it mistook
for weather.
Years later,
at the threshold
of an abandoned chapel,
the traveller
removed a boot.
Across the darkened heel,
where only dust
should have remained,
small violets
were opening—
each one
Turning
not toward the sun,
but toward
the faint fragrance
still rising
from the place
that had once
crushed them.